I mistook her voice for my own. She never yelled, she didn’t have to. She whispered in echoes, threading the words of others through my thoughts until they felt like my own. I fed her without knowing, chasing people who echoed her back to me, mistaking pain for proof. It wasn’t until the breaking that I saw a glimmer. Not a glimmer of hope, but of a golden light, waiting to be remembered.
I was never an easy child. I was emotional, I cried for people I didn’t know. I was loud, my kindergarten teacher referred to me as a “chatterbox”. My heart was so sensitive, soaking in the words of others like a sponge, absorbing everything into my bones. I aimed to please, I lived for praise, I became a master at adapting. So when my kindergarten teacher told my parents I was a chatterbox, I began to talk less. She’s improved so much in class. Good job, we’re proud of you. My sensitive heart glows. I’m so happy they’re proud of me. But a storm was brewing inside of me. It happened slowly, a drip, a whisper, a glance I read too much into. No known start, no obvious cause. Words I never forgot, words no one remembers saying. And so I adapted. I became charming, easy, sweet, smart, kind, thoughtful, never too much. I learned how to make myself easy to love.
But it wasn’t love I was chasing, it was evidence. Something to prove the storm wrong, something to prove I was enough. So I set goals too high. You’re a failure, no wonder you couldn’t do it. I lied to my friends. You’re not interesting, no one is listening to you. I chased after emotionally unavailable people, unattainable people. Because I thought the harder they were to earn, the more valuable I would be if they chose me. When they didn’t, well of course they didn’t. Why would anyone choose you? You’re not enough. When I got older, I started pining, clawing after girls who didn’t want me. It even became a joke between my friends that I only liked straight girls, or girls who were mean to me. But I didn’t like them because they were mean or straight, I chased them because I knew they were unattainable. Their validation would surely prove the storm wrong, right? But it didn’t. Once I received validation from them, they were no longer enough for me. If a girl liked me back, I dismissed her. I didn’t have to earn her validation, so something must be wrong with her. It’s too easy. You’re not enough so why would she choose you? She’s strange, better ignore her. I thought of myself as a lost cause. Addicted to love, in love with every girl I met. As soon as I fell out of love with one girl I was in love with another. It wasn’t until the breaking that I saw the truth. The reason I had been like this for so long. The reason I could never accept love, true, genuine love.
I had mistaken the chase for tension. I thought longing was the same as love. But it was never love that I was hungry for, it was worth. Proof. A witness to say I was good enough.
It took me over a decade to realize that I was never addicted to love, I was addicted to performance. I wasn’t scared of being rejected, I was scared of losing the sparkle. And I wasn’t chasing validation to prove the voice wrong, I was chasing validation to prove the voice right. And it was only then that I could finally see that the voice wasn’t mine.
During the breaking, the time where I was falling for girls like I was slipping on ice, I realized I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to know why I sabotaged myself. Why I do things I don’t want to do. So I paused, and listened, and I heard a voice. A voice I had silenced long ago. A voice that told me I was kind, I was good, I was enough. A voice that was there long before the storm. Before the words no one remembers saying. Before the lies, and the chasing. A voice the storm had hidden. I realized the same way people had power over me, the storm had power. It could only grow if it kept me down, so I wanted to stay sick, to listen. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else, that my true sense of self had been pushed so far down I couldn’t see her anymore. It was the breaking that made me want to find her. That made me want to listen to her.
I now know that the voice is the small girl inside of me. The girl I was before I was called a chatterbox. Before the bullies and the scolding. The girl who cried for people she didn’t know. The girl who’s heart was too sensitive. The girl I had pushed down and ignored because the cloud told me she wasn’t easy to love. But she was never meant to be easy to love. She was never meant to be picked. She was never meant to be understood by everyone. To be validated. She was meant to be herself. Loud and sweet and kind. Maybe she was too much. But she was mine. All she ever needed was to be welcomed back. To be loved by me first. That’s where the true healing begins.
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